Landsmanshaftn are societies formed by Jewish immigrants from the same villages, towns, and cities, primarily in Eastern Europe. They became a dominant form of Jewish social organization in the late 19th century and continued to function as such well into the 20th century. The many types of landsmanshaftn included religious and socialist organizations as well as American-style fraternal orders. They played an important role in immigrant's lives, providing them with formal and informal social networks. Members paid dues to the society, which in turn helped provide for members' financial needs as well as their medical care and burial.
CJH provides access to dozens of Landsmanshaftn partner collections. Please see the lists of archival and library volumes below for highlights. A complete list of materials available can be found through various keyword searching at search.cjh.org.
Landsmanshaftn Collection (RG 123)
The collection contains materials pertaining to over 500 *landsmanshaftn*. Included are: charters, certificates of incorporation, constitutions, minutes, financial records, membership records, burial records, publications, clippings.
Records of the AJDC, Landsmanshaftn Department (RG 335.7)
This collection contains mainly correspondence between staff of the JDC Landsmanshaftn Department and members of various landsmanshaftn, benevolent organizations of immigrants originally from the same communities, as well as between the Landsmanshaftn Department and the interest-free loan associations (gmilas khesed societies) and heads of the various Jewish communities, mostly in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Landsmanshaftn Collection (I-332)
The bulk of this collection consists of anniversary or souvenir journals for approximately ninety landsmanshaftn benevolent organizations.
YIVO Landsmanshaftn Records (LDSFT)
The list is organized by ancestral town (that is, the town from which the founders of the organizations originally immigrated from). YIVO has the records of over 1,500 individual landsmanshaftn. Some landsmanshaftn records comprise stand-alone collections with their own Record Group numbers. Some records are in a folder that is included in a larger collection.
A Guide to YIVO's Landsmanshaftn Archive : From Alexandrovsk to Zyrardow / Schwartz, Rosaline & Milamed, Susan. New York: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 1986. Print.
"In a World Still Trembling": American Jewish Philanthropy and the Shaping of Holocaust Survivor Narratives in Postwar America (1945 -- 1953) / Deblinger, Rachel Beth. 2014. University of California, Los Angeles. PhD dissertation. Web.
Jewish Philanthropy: An Exposition of Principles and Methods of Jewish Social Service in the United States / Bogen, Boris David. New York, Macmillan, 1917. Print.
Philanthropy in Rabbinical Literature / Cronbach, Abraham. Jewish Tracts ; No. 9. Cincinnati, The Tract Commission, [1930]. Print.
Photography, Philanthropy, and the Politics of American Jewish Identity / Steinberg, Kerri P.,1998. University of California, Los Angeles. PhD dissertation. Print.
Power of the Purse: Social Change in Jewish Women's Philanthropy / Einhorn, Deborah Skolnick., 2012. Brandeis University. PhD dissertation. Print.
Women’s Philanthropy Leadership Gallery / United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, New York, NY, 2015. Print.
For more information on landsmanshaftn as well as tips on searching for national/international records, please visit these additional CJH Research Guides:
Genealogy Guide: Landsmanshaftn Records
Genealogy Guide: Landsmanshaftn Records—Minsk Province
Jewish Genealogical Sociey of New York
List of YIVO's landsmanshaftn collections
The following list of over 1380 organizations includes all landsmanshaftn listed in A Guide to YIVO's Landsmanshaftn Archive by Rosaline Schwartz and Susan Milamed, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York, 1986, and Guide to the YIVO Archives, compiled and edited by Fruma Mohrer and Marek Web, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 1998. The list also includes the additional landsmanshaftn collections that YIVO has acquired since then that have been catalogued. NOTE: There is no indication of when this list was last updated.
The JGSNY Burial Society Database Project
In 1989, the Jewish Genealogical Society, Inc. (New York) began an effort to identify the names and cemetery locations of all Jewish burial society plots in the New York metropolitan area. These include plots of landsmanshaftn (home town associations), synagogues, family circles, fraternal organizations and labor unions. Today, this database contains close to 10,200 entries from almost 100 cemeteries located in New York City, Long Island, Putnam County, Westchester County, and northern New Jersey.
New York Public Library
Landsmanshaftn in New York: A Quick Online Guide
This resource created by the Dorot Jewish Division of the New York Public Library is also a helpful guide in starting your research on landsmanshaftn. Though it is filled with resources similar to those included on the Center's landsmanshaftn guide, it includes a link to an extensive spreadsheet of specific materials in the NYPL collection relating to landsmanshaftn.